Robison: In the driver's seat and driving blind

In the driver's seat and driving blind

CLAY ROBISON, Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Published
5:30 am CDT, Sunday, May 11, 2003

They aren't trying to beat the six-day record set in Genesis, but Republicans who waited 130 years to gain a majority of the Texas House are nevertheless in an awfully big hurry to recreate the world of state government.

Aided and abetted by Gov. Rick Perry, they claim that their goals are to promote more efficient use of tax dollars, streamline the administration of state programs and improve the delivery of public services, at least those public services that they don't abolish.

They may accomplish some of the above, but it will be at a high cost -- and not just to the hundreds of thousands of Texans who will be losing health insurance, nursing home care, prescription drugs, new school textbooks and other needs because of budget cuts.

Some Republican legislators also may be jeopardizing their own political futures as they continue to eagerly -- and often blindly -- cast votes on issues whose full ramifications may not be known for months, even years -- or shortly before re-election time.

Several complex, government reorganization bills, for example, have been moving through the House. They are designed partly to help balance the new state budget but also to foster long-dormant, conservative Republican goals to curtail government and, especially, public assistance programs.

One measure approved by the House last month would overhaul health and social service agencies and save the state nearly $1 billion during the next two years, partly by eliminating some administrative duplication and partly by cutting services from low-income Texans and replacing old bureaucratic hurdles with new ones.

Five other agency reorganization bills, touching virtually every aspect of state government and representing a potential budgetary savings of $2.8 billion, also are moving and may have been voted on by the full House by the time you read this.

They include House Bill 2, an opus of 400-plus pages authored by Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, that would affect numerous agencies, encourage privatization of prisons and increase the governor's powers.

Even Craddick admitted he didn't know everything that was in the bill, which was still being revised last week.

The measure probably includes some valid, cost-cutting ideas, but it also probably includes some bad policy and potential landmines that could blow up on lawmakers later. Few legislators, besides Swinford, are likely to have read much of the bill, but political opponents may find something buried deep within it to turn against them in months to come.

The next year, an ambitious and well-funded opponent used one little-noticed provision in the bill to help unseat Jones. The provision would have allowed the state to obtain liens against the homes of some Medicaid recipients after they died.

The language was largely procedural. It wasn't designed to send heartless bureaucrats circling, buzzardlike, over deathbeds.

But heartless was exactly how it was portrayed in a hard-hitting TV commercial aired -- eight days before the election -- by Jones' successful opponent.

The Senate will likely revise some of the government organization bills, although it can't ignore them because the potential cost-savings are being counted on to help balance a new state budget without raising taxes.

But ramming such far-sweeping legislation through the House and the Senate in the closing days of a session is a poor way to conduct the public's business. It's almost as if the Republican majority is fearful of evaporating after this year and losing its only chance at remaking government.

The GOP majority may deserve evaporation, thanks to the increased suffering that budget cuts will inflict upon the poor. But Republicans will be in the driver's seat in Austin a while longer, certainly long enough to at least try to figure out what they're doing.